{"id":297819,"date":"2026-05-03T10:59:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/297819\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T10:59:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T10:59:32","slug":"sofi-stadium-workers-threaten-strike-if-ice-is-at-world-cup-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/297819\/","title":{"rendered":"SoFi Stadium workers threaten strike if ICE is at World Cup games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Isaac Martinez has been as a cook at SoFi Stadium<\/a> for four years. He\u2019s worked dozens of events including NFL games, a Super Bowl<\/a>, Taylor Swift concerts<\/a>, Wrestlemania and the college football national championship game.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s never been afraid to come to work. Until now.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not alone. With the World Cup kicking off<\/a> at the Inglewood venue next month, Martinez says he and many of the people who work in food services and other jobs at the stadium won\u2019t feel safe if federal immigration agents are present during the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the workers are afraid. They fear for their safety,\u201d Martinez said in Spanish. \u201cThis is also about the fans. People come from everywhere, even from Iran. So we\u2019re concerned about their safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Workers <\/p>\n

Workers and activists begin their march from MacArthur Park to downtown Los Angeles on Friday.<\/p>\n

(Genaro Molina\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

So concerned that Unite Here Local 11<\/a>, the hospitality union that represents Martinez and about 2,000 others who are working at SoFi without a contract, said it may strike ahead of the World Cup if Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents aren\u2019t kept away from the stadium.<\/p>\n

Last month Unite Here Local 11 filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board charging Legends Hospitality, which operates the premium food, beverage and retail services at SoFi; Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, owner of the stadium; and FIFA, organizer of the World Cup, with creating an unsafe work environment by refusing to restrict the presence of ICE officials at the eight World Cup games to be played in Inglewood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned about the safety of guests and workers,\u201d said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Local 11. \u201cICE has become more and more out of control and violent. We saw what happened in the killings in Minnesota. So I don\u2019t think anyone is safe when ICE is around.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for FIFA declined to comment about the union\u2019s complaint, and Legends Hospitality did not immediately respond to repeated requests for comment. The union, meanwhile, joined Friday with faith and labor leaders and members of the Fair Games Coalition to press their point at a May Day rally outside the FIFA host committee offices in downtown Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what role federal authorities will play at the World Cup, but Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, has said his agency will have a \u201ckey part\u201d in security at tournament venues. And that ambiguous statement raised alarms not just with workers but also with human rights groups such as Amnesty International, which issued a World Cup travel advisory<\/a> for visitors planning on attending the tournament.<\/p>\n

Petersen said the union, along with more than 100 human rights groups, asked FIFA President Gianni Infantino<\/a> to make a direct request to President Trump for a moratorium on ICE raids \u2014 especially at World Cup venues \u2014 during the 38-day tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cFIFA could tell the Trump administration, \u2018Keep ICE out of the games. We don\u2019t need them to run a soccer tournament,\u2019\u201d Petersen said. \u201cSo that is the demand that we\u2019re continuing to insist on. And if we don\u2019t get that, then we\u2019re prepared to do everything up to a strike heading into the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amnesty International\u2019s concerns are far broader than those of Petersen\u2019s union. The group said it is worried about \u201cthe deteriorating human rights situation in the United States\u201d and \u201cthe absence of meaningful action and concrete guarantees from FIFA, host cities or the U.S. government\u201d to address that.<\/p>\n

Amy Fischer, director for refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International USA, warned \u201cthere is a real risk for people traveling to these games because of the aggressive immigration enforcement tactics that we\u2019ve seen from this administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a high likelihood of some chaos. Because that is what this administration thrives off of and it\u2019s what they love to create,\u201d she added. \u201cAt Amnesty, we are really hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.\u201d<\/p>\n

The travel advisory issued last week says visitors may be arbitrarily denied entry to the country, detained in \u201cinhumane\u201d conditions or subjected to invasive phone and social media searches. It also cites aggressive immigration surges in cities including Los Angeles that led to accusations of racial profiling and the violent suppression of protests.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know at the games there will be immigrant fans, there will be immigrant workers,\u201d Fischer said. \u201cNobody is safe in that environment with this lawless agency that is consistently violating the law and violating people\u2019s human rights. It could make any game turn into a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anxiety is high among stadium workers, who are concerned about the threat of ICE detainment, regardless of their immigration status.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are asking FIFA to take care of this and not allow ICE to be present in the stadium,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen the violence isn\u2019t limited to one particular group. The violence is widespread. People have been killed in Minneapolis, in Chicago, even here in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen everything that\u2019s happened with ICE, and that\u2019s where the fear comes from for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isaac Martinez has been as a cook at SoFi Stadium for four years. He\u2019s worked dozens of events…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1758,8862,126224,126226,2871,126225,72865,48,52,51,47,50,49,63,54532,592,126227,21670,12967,4455,126223],"class_list":["post-297819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-director","tag-fifa","tag-hospitality-union","tag-human-right-group","tag-ice","tag-isaac-martinez","tag-kurt-petersen","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-nfl-game","tag-people","tag-sofi-stadium-worker","tag-stadium","tag-tournament","tag-worker","tag-world-cup-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}